Banff - Jasper Golf Road Trip
Alberta is home to some of Canada’s most idyllic settings, playing voice to both the golf courses that occupy the space and the off the course activities golf trips often crave. Strung together across two of Canada's great national parks this trip takes golfers from Calgary through the natural spine of the province along the beautiful Icefields Parkway all the way up to Jasper National Park and back. But the routing is flexible by design. While we’ve written this adventure by beginning in Calgary, the travel on this trip could also be started in Edmonton working across the prairie into the mountains near Jasper, then down through Banff, before turning back up highway 2 to Edmonton stopping at Wolf Creek on the way home. What doesn't change is the quality of the adventure, which is highlighted by two of Stanley Thompson’s best designs, a powerful duo from Rod Whitman in the sand, and of course the captivating fan favourite Kananaskis.
This is one of the best (and essential) golf trips, and more broadly travel destinations, anywhere in Canada.
Kananaskis Country
Before reaching Banff and Canmore, turn off the highway to reach Kananaskis Mountain Village and the Kananaskis Country Golf Courses - a popular spot for a game of golf. Our strong preference is to play the Mt. Kidd golf course - its stronger architecture and more interesting topographical features are well suited to be a notable additions to this golf trip full of incredible golf.
Onsite accommodations and secondary golf options on the Mt. Lorette golf course are optional. Our preference is for 1 round here and travel to Canmore for accommodations, food & beverage, and more golf options, but if you want to maximize the rounds on this trip, this is a good place to start.
Kananaskis Country Golf Course (Mt. Kidd)
Robert Trent Jones's return to the mountains that helped define his youthful years in golf architectire alongside design partner Stanley Thompson. The course he built is a reflection of his career - crafting the landscape with a firm hand, and challenging the golfer with his typical directive flair.
Today, the golf course is a reflection of RTJ's work, rebuilt by the duo of Les Furber and Gary Browning after devastating floods destroyed the course in 2013. Set amongst one of the most beautiful settings in all of Canadian golf, winding its way through the Kananaskis River Valley, sharply contrasted with the mountains as a constant backdrop, the golf course is very picturesque. Holes like the par 3 4th and short par 4 5th express both the visual delights of the setting and creative works of the architects.
$175-$220 | Alberta resident rate $114-$159 | cart extra + tax
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All prices are CAD and reflect rates sourced directly from course websites. Rates vary by season and day of week — confirm current pricing before booking.
Banff & Canmore
Canmore is the most logical place for accommodations during this leg of the trip - with more affordable options than directly in Banff. This trip’s focal point is Banff Springs, as such we’ve not paired this round with any other golf, allowing the brilliance of the setting and the golf course itself to percolate on your mind. If you want to add additional golf in and around Canmore, a multitude of additional options exist, with Silvertip and Stewart Creek being the most popular. But don’t sleep on Canmore Golf & Curling club - this is an underrated gem that’s an overall stronger golf course, but less dramatic or scenic due to its location in the river valley as opposed to built on the side of the mountain.
Banff Springs
The famed Banff Links is one of the world's great golf courses. Set within Banff National Park, its development by the Canadian Pacific Railway in the 1920s was nothing short of spectacular.
Following the development of Jasper Park Lodge (1925), architect Stanley Thompson was handed over a golf course designed by Donald Ross just a handful of years earlier, to elevate and successfully established "the last word in golf". His addition of connector holes to and from the hotel, and the trio of holes at the far end of the property, including the famous Devil's Cauldron delivered a cohesive masterpiece that up until the late 1980's played as an out and back routing.
Today the golf course, while slightly different in its sequence of holes, continues to offer a world class experience for visiting golfers. Showcasing some of Stanley Thompson's best work, the course illustrates a classic sophistication and style with its flashed bunkers mimicking the mountain backdrops, holes routed through tree lined corridors, and green sites that fit ideally into the setting.
$500-$529 cart included + tax
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All prices are CAD and reflect rates sourced directly from course websites. Rates vary by season and day of week — confirm current pricing before booking.
Jasper
From Banff, the drive north along the Icefields Parkway is one of the greatest road experiences anywhere in the world. At times there is no cell service, just the quiet serenity that falls upon mother nature’s beautiful surroundings. The drive may take 4 hours from door to door, but consider this an all day or at least half day affair. There is no reason to rush. The Columbia Icefield, Athabasca Falls, Peyto Lake, and so much more deliver spectacle at every turn, and by the time you arrive in Jasper the golf almost feels secondary. It isn't. Jasper Park Lodge Golf Course is Stanley Thompson's finest work and truly one of the world’s great golf courses.
Notes: With Jasper experiencing devastating fires in 2024 the town has less capacity - as such you might be better served staying in Hinton, about an hour drive east outside the park. The other thing to note is that Jasper is remote and has long winters. This means Jasper doesn’t typically open for golf season until the end of May and closes early, in October, with the best times of year to visit in August or September. Hazard not Jasper is quite an amazing experience no matter when you go.
If you are into learning about the sites you see and the history of the parks on this trip consider purchasing the Icefields Parkway audio driving tour from GyPSy Guide link here (no affiliation).
Athabasca Falls early morning July 2023
Jasper Park Lodge
Set in a valley of the Canadian Rockies in Alberta, Jasper Park Lodge is Stanley Thompson's grandest design.Framed by 10,000-foot snow-capped peaks, the jade waters of Lac Beauvert, and the roaming elk, moose, and bear, there may be no other golf course in Canada (or perhaps even the world) to rival its natural beauty.
The routing is a study in restraint and intelligence. Thompson read this land with sensitivity to its surroundings, working with the natural contours of a glacially deposited terrain to produce a golf course that perfectly matches its setting. Rising and falling gracefully, while preserving the ability to easily walk and enjoy the rhythmic symptom the land produces. Going so far as to earning the admiration of two of the game's most thoughtful architects, Alister MacKenzie and George C. Thomas with the former saying "It is by far the best inland golf course in Canada or the United States... the best finish in the World of Golf."
While many may favour the course at Banff, Jasper's enduring advantage over Thompson's other mountain work is simple: it still plays as he drew it. Because of that, players who make the journey to Jasper are sure to find a golf course that matches its setting perfectly. Every green is open in front, inviting the ground game, while Thompson's sprawling bunkers, often set 20 to 60 yards short of the putting surface, deceive the eye and mirror the scale of the surrounding peaks. The par threes at the 4th and 9th each stretch past 230 yards, the 10th weaves through a maze of eleven bunkers, and the 15th, "Bad Baby," ranks among the finest short holes anywhere.
It is a course where architectural merit, a breathtaking setting, and playability for all meet in rare balance. Simply put, Jasper embodies the same set of ideals as The Old Course in Canada's most impressive landscape.
$224-$280 cart included + tax
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All prices are CAD and reflect rates sourced directly from course websites. Rates vary by season and day of week — confirm current pricing before booking.
Red Deer & Wolf Creek Golf Resort
On the return south from Jasper along the Icefields Parkway hang a left to head east at Saskatchewan River crossing, this road leads directly to Red Deer and our final destination on this trip. The mountains gradually recede in the rear view and the land opens into the rolling hills of Central Alberta and our eventual destination of Red Deer - halfway between Edmonton and Calgary. Just north of Red Deer is Wolf Creek Golf Resort. A 36-hole facility that is one of the most significant golf destinations in Canada, and among the most overlooked simply due to its reputation of poor conditioning. Here, Rod Whitman built the Old Course in the early 1980s, long before his international reputation was established, and the work he did on these sandy glacial hills foreshadowed everything that followed: Cabot Links, Blackhawk, Sagebrush, and his shaping work alongside pals Bill Coore and Ben Crenshaw at world top 100 locations like Friars Head. This is where Rod made his initial mark on Canada’s golfing landscape.
While this destination is a little bit less glamorous than our previous stops, Wolf Creek is chock full of architectural delights and with 36 holes on property will certainly fill the bucket for those who want to play a lot of golf. If you ever wanted to see golf in the sand hills of Nebraska but didn’t have the time or influence to do so easily Wolf Creek should be right up your alley for pennies on the dollar.
Wolf Creek (Old)
The Old Course at Wolf Creek is where it all started for Rod Whitman's solo design career. Built on a sand belt in the rolling hills outside Ponoka, Alberta – Whitman's hometown – his original layout is a product of its land in the most literal sense. The sand deposit the course rests on is a result of glacial movement thousands of years ago, which the architect was able to take full advantage. Carving fairways through the combination of forested terrain and prairie scrub, setting greens into natural shelves and punchbowls, and navigating valleys and the creek cutting through the property as a recurring and consequential hazard.
As a shaper, Rod Whitman has worked for some of the worlds most talented architects, including Pete Dye who clearly influenced Whitman's work. While Canada has never procured a Pete Dye design of its own, the old course is the closest thing to one. Railway ties, and small, severely sloped greens await golfers who visit this layout.
Some might be critical of the varying width of the holes, or the severity of the greens, or the conditioning, but the truth is the golf course is a remarkable perspective on everything golf architecture on sandy soils should be. Allowing the ball to trundle around the contours, continuously keeping golfers focused on their game. An absolute must play for golf architecture enthusiasts and those seeking to play Canada's best golf courses.
$76-$80 cart extra + tax
Wolf Creek (Links)
Completed over two decades after the Old Course, the Links is Rod Whitman's second statement on the same property. And in many ways the more refined one. Where the Old Course is raw and rooted in the terrain's dramatic movements and changing setting, the Links brings a more deliberate architectural hand: wider fairways with meaningful internal contours, bunkering that is both more visible and more strategically loaded, and a green-to-green flow that feels cohesive across the property.
The name Links can be a little misleading. This is not a seaside links course in the traditional sense, but the spirit is clear: open, exposed golf where the wind and ground contours are a factor, and the golfer who insists on hitting every shot through the air may be punished. Whitman's minimalist design philosophy is fully evident — the shaping is subtle, the land does the work to accumulate the experience quietly across the routing rather than delivering isolated moments of spectacle.
Elevation changes, prevailing wind, and precise bunkering at key landing zones create a course that earns its difficulty rather than imposing it. The closing stretch is demanding, exposed, with green complexes create almost as good a finishing run as you'll find at any public golf facility in Canada. Of course, we couldn't complete this summary without noting the conditioning issues that are present on the Links course. As a rather unfortunate circumstance of Wolf Creek's financial situation in the lead up to the pandemic and the operating costs since, the course's dramatic blow out bunkering that highlight the incredible work of Rod Whitman is not what it used to be. However, the design influence and captivating architectural work are still ever present and for that reason alone the Links is most definitely worth seeing.
$76-$80 cart extra + tax
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Where to stay
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All prices are CAD and reflect rates sourced directly from course websites. Rates vary by season and day of week — confirm current pricing before booking.
